


Shelter for Philomel

by myadamantiumheart



Series: To Love a Nightingale [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 17:14:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myadamantiumheart/pseuds/myadamantiumheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is in a cafe in a European city whose name Ra's does not recall that he finds the nightingale in all his glory- Timothy Drake sitting there with an open copy of The Great Gatsby and loneliness written across his face.<br/>(A somewhat softer world AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter for Philomel

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Note That Initially Inspired This All](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/11053) by (on Tumblr). 



> This is an alternate universe in which a rather more suggestable Bruce Wayne learns that Damian Wayne exists when the boy is only about one, maybe one and a half years old. He never adopts Dick Grayson, instead marrying Talia Al Ghul and raising his child from the other side of the world while he stays in Gotham for most of the year and carries on his mission as Batman. He and Talia end up adopting Jason Todd when Bruce finds him on the streets lifting the tires off the Batmobile, and Bruce and Jason fight side by side for a few years. When Jason is captured by the Joker, he barely survives the beating and subsequent torture that the Joker inflicts. After this, Bruce Wayne pleads out of Gotham citing Jason’s ‘accident’ as a reason and they move in with Talia and Damian and Ra’s at the Al Ghul palace where Jason can recuperate and use the Lazarus pit to rehabilitate himself. They live there as a relatively happy family (still the deadliest family in the world, but happy nonetheless).  
> Tim Drake comes into the picture at eight years old. He is saved by Jason at a high society party where he’s pulled into a side room by his considerably drunk uncle who then attempts to molest him. Jason walks in on them and becomes furious, pulling the uncle off and bundling Tim off to comfort him and help him. Tim hears his laugh and remembers it, looking up to Jason immensely from that point on. Then, a few weeks later, for some reason Tim’s still awake and he has his window open in his family’s townhouse, and he sees Robin in the distance and hears his laugh. He remembers that it’s Jason’s laugh, and that’s how he ends up discovering the Wayne Family Secret. Tim stalks them at parties and takes pictures of them until Jason’s accident, when Tim is eleven, and Jason and Bruce disappear. He doesn’t find them again until he meets Ra’s.

He finds the nightingale in a cafe on 6th street in the middle of a European city, as the afternoon rain patters quietly on the streets and the people bustle by the warm spot. The man, perhaps in his early twenties, is so entirely absorbed in his well-worn paperback that he does not even notice Ra’s intent observation.

His raven hair, a curtain of silk, falls across startlingly blue eyes that flick across the pages leisurely, making their way through the story at a comfortable pace.

Everything about this cafe is comfortable, really, from the patrons to the food to the fireplace to the rugs. And that’s what makes this man stand out to Ra’s. The _only_ thing comfortable about him is his gait in reading. He sits stiffly- his skin is pale, the pale of spending too much time indoors. His cheeks are somewhat hollowed in that absent minded way, like perhaps he does not remember to feed himself. His fingers are slender and they tremble when he turns the pages of his book. He is slim, his cardigan dwarfing his lithe frame, and his legs are miles long where they cross their sapling lengths across each other underneath the small cafe table. He has several tea cups in front of him, all empty but one, and he works his way through several more before Ra’s has a chance to make his move towards the beautiful man and his beautiful haunted eyes.

He pens a small note to the man, writing the digits of his cellular phone at the bottom of the note he’d written on hotel stationary he’d found in his pocket, and when the pale man gets up to go to the bathroom, he slips the note into his book at the bookmarked page and returns to the counter to pay for both his food and for the nightingale’s. (He has them send over an extra pastry, almond paste inside and cinnamon on the outside, because the fragile porcelain wrists and jaw that seemed like the edges of frail moons in the dark, cozy cafe made Ra’s afraid he should break the man if he ever were to embrace him.)

And then he steps into the darkening street and hopes that he should be so lucky as to have netted the song bird.

 -----

Tim had not been paying all that much attention to his surroundings- that much was true. He never did, these days. His days of watching socialites from afar and escaping his drunken uncle’s searching fingers were long over. He had long watched Bruce Wayne and his ward, Jason Todd, but now they were gone just like the rest, and with them had gone Timothy’s incessant observation of the world around him.

Now he sits like a paper doll in cafes around the globe, traveling from one place to the next as though he’s the ghost of the real Timothy Drake, his camera in his bag and his paperback copy of The Great Gatsby in his hand. He never really liked Jay Gatsby until he turned fourteen and he lost everything at once, his parents and his family and his life as it was. Now he gets on planes and boats and trains and sees the echo of Brylcreem’d hair and pinstripe 20’s suits in the glass of the windows that showcase the world passing him by. He sees the loss that had ostensibly driven Jay Gatsby to pursue the shell of the life he’d once dreamed of, and wonders if, perhaps, he has become the same. Every hello and every goodbye and every time he smiles hollowly at an attendant greeting him by his hallowed name and every time he swipes the credit card that holds the immense, massive fortune he might never use up is another Daisy Buchanan.

Every picture he takes is another James Gatz, the truth of the matter hidden beneath the facade of an aloof, orphaned billionaire. Sometimes Tim wonders if he’d taken too many cues from Bruce Wayne when he’d watched him at parties and followed him in the nights. Perhaps Timothy Drake’s Batman is Tim, the quiet, pale photographer that sits immersed in his glorious solitude at the edges of lakes and on the fringes of society, snapping still frames of all the experiences that pass him by.

But then, one rainy day, in the cafe on some prosaic city street, Timothy’s indifference rather rapidly changes as he is thrust into an adventure he did not look for, but merely stumbled upon in happenstance. He opened his book, Daisy busy crying over the beauty of shirts, and found, to his surprise, a small note written on generic hotel stationary.

 _**I do not think I have ever seen someone so at peace with the world as you are, sitting there reading your book. You are quite an exquisite, quiet beauty** _ _,_ the note starts, and Tim’s cheeks are already flushing at the praise. **_I could not help but stare in fascination ,_** it continues ** _. And I would love to see you again, if you’d like the same._**

It is signed with a name that Tim has only seen once before, with a cellular telephone number beside it.

 **_Ra’s_ ** ,  it’s signed, with a flourishing hand.

And though the only other time he has seen the name it had been in conjunction with a magazine story about the immense power and untold wealth of an ancient man, Ra’s Al Ghul, who ruled an empire in the Middle East with an iron hand, Timothy settles into his chair and folds the note between the back two pages of his book, saving it for later.

Perhaps he will call it.

\-----

It is three days more before he pulls out his cell phone and taps in the number on the (by this time) well-worn note. He listens to the dialing tones, and then the ring of the phone as he waits for the man on the other end to pick up.

“Hello?” A voice, smooth, deep- shiver-worthy, though Tim tries not to dwell on that particular thought too much.

“Ah, yes- is this Ra’s?” he asks, fiddling with the hotel stationary between his fingers, crumpling and crimping it and then flattening it out again. “This is Tim- Timothy, you left a note in my book at the Cafe du Monde the other day?”

“Ah, _Timothy_ ,” the man’s voice fairly _caresses_ his name, the sounds of someone shutting a door resounding faintly through the connection. “Yes. I must say, I’m _quite_ pleased you called me. I was hoping you wouldn’t be scared away by my interest.”

“Oh, no, I-” Tim starts, fingers curling around the edge of the bedspread of his hotel room. “I’m simply not... used to people showing interest in me at _all_ ,” he admits, smiling softly as he looks out the window, the night lights of the city twinkling in the incoming fog.

Ra’s makes a small, almost distressed sound before laughing, his pleased tone warming Tim’s ear through the phone.

“I suppose that is in my advantage, then,” he purrs, fingers tapping audibly on something wooden. “I would appreciate a chance to demonstrate my interest in person, though. Perhaps you would allow me to take you out to dinner and a show? I’m in town for an art showing and I just so happen to have a plus one spot that hasn’t been filled.” Tim debates, thinking about the hollow nights he has planned, laying there in the dark and waiting for dreamless sleep that only sometimes echoes with the memory of Jason’s Robin laugh between Gotham buildings late at night.

“That would be lovely,” he decides, and Ra’s seems pleased by this.

They make plans to meet at a restaurant, a _**Naschmarkt** _ (Ra’s assures him it has wonderful Austrian food), in one day’s time, at 8:30 pm. The art showing is apparently a late night gala, not beginning until 11:00 pm, so Tim agrees and hangs up the phone feeling vaguely satisfied for the first time in a long while.

\-----

He stands outside the restaurant, waiting, his arms crossed against the cold and his tailored pea coat buttoned firmly up to his neck over his black suit, deep claret vest hidden deep beneath the dusky coal of the coat. And he just knows instinctively when he sees him- the tall, elegant man stepping from the back of a cab, one leather gloved hand tight around a small bouquet and the other in his trenchcoat pocket, the dignified lavender of his suit vest gleaming in the twilight. His facial hair is carefully trimmed and startlingly attractive, and his dark, carefully coiffed hair is swept back. He looks as though he should belong in a bodice-ripping romance novel, the ones Tim’s old housekeeper used to be fond of. He, of course, has the advantage, and spots Tim immediately, approaching him with a fluid gate and a predatory smirk on his face.

“Timothy,” Ra’s says, his hand extended towards the other man, offering forth the bouquet. Tim smiles at him, briefly, taking the bouquet and lifting it to his face to smell it. He- it is one queen anne’s lace (delicate femininity), surrounded by coriander blossoms (lust), with an outer ring of sprawling, gorgeous, lush jasmine (sensuality, love), and Tim blushes into the petals as he realizes the many messages this bouquet sends. When he lowers it, Ra’s bends, pressing a kiss to each of his cheeks and smiling down at him with dark eyes tinged with glowing green. He cannot be more than 27 years old, virile and strong and simply _emanating_ testosterone as though it was the cologne he dabbed on before arriving.

“Ra’s,” Tim rasps out, clearing his throat and staring up at the other man, his high flush burning across his cheekbones in the frigid air. “Shall we go inside?” Ra’s slips a hand around Tim’s waist, swiveling them about as he leads the smaller man to the door of the restaurant, steamy air enveloping them. They are seated at the back, a secluded corner, and wine is brought to them without their ordering it. Ra’s simply waves at the waiter, and before Tim knows it, his glass is filled with a burgundy vintage that makes his head spin as he tastes the richness of the flavor.

It is oddly suited to Ra’s voice.

Ra’s asks him questions about his life, and Timothy does his best to ask questions back. He learns that Ra’s is, in fact, the grandson of the Ra’s Al Ghul that Tim had once read about, holding his empire in the Middle East. He has inherited his grandfather’s throne, it seems, and is traveling the world in search of himself. At least, that’s what he says.

“I don’t have a family, any more,” Tim says when Ra’s asks after then, asks what they are doing letting their prince out of their kingdom. “They’ve... Well.” _They’ve all left me all alone_ , he doesn’t say. “My father and mother died when I was fourteen, there was an accident when they went on a business trip. I had an uncle, when I was a small child, but he moved away around the time I turned 10 and I never was able to find him.” _Not that I would want to_ , Tim neglects to add, thinking about searching fingers and whiskey breath and the sheer sweet relief of Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne’s ward, yelling furiously in the doorway and pulling him from those alcohol soaked arms. “After I turned 15 I petitioned for emancipation from the state and I lived in my family home with a house keeper as a guardian. When I turned 18 I was given my inheritance.” He sighs, wiping his mouth with a napkin and setting down his fork over the crumbs of the apple strudel they had shared. “It is... enough. More than enough. Far more than I will ever need. So I just travel, I suppose. Work on my art. See the world.”

“You do not have a home,” Ra’s says, his voice low and his eyes full of a sadness Tim does not understand.

“I have never truly had one at all,” Tim murmurs, Ra’s reply cut from his mouth by the arrival of the check and Ra’s insistence that he must pay for the meal. They do not return to the topic, leaving the restaurant at a slow pace and Ra’s opens the door for him as he slides into the gray car that waits for them at the curb.

The show is exquisite, full of ladies in shimmering jewel tones and men in perfectly tailored suits, all of them staring with vapid champagne eyes at the sheer immense beauty of the prints on the walls of the museum. It’s a Lee Miller show, almost all of her prints in one place. He catches hard on the print of a stunning woman looking down at the camera from the cockpit of an airplane, her tools in hand as she works on the interior. It’s titled “Airborne” and that’s exactly how it makes Tim feel, Ra’s hand at the small of his back and his eyes locked on the woman’s. She’s a radio mechanic, or so the description says, and Tim looks at her hastily finger-waved hair and just simply _wants_. He has always wanted to capture people like that, in their precious off-guard moments. Ra’s’ lips press against his ear and Tim shivers, caught between the intensity of the photo and the immense charisma of the man at his side. The feeling of that moment, sparks up his spine, lingers heavily through the night, pulling heavily at his hips when the car reaches his hotel and he turns towards the other man.

“Would you like to see some of- of _my_ photographs?” Tim asks, hesitant, his face half hidden in the shadows of the car. “If you haven’t had enough of photos for the night, I mean, I understand-”

“Timothy,” Ra’s purrs, and Tim fairly melts back against the upholstery of the car’s seat back. “I would love to.”

They make their way up to Tim’s lushly appointed hotel suite like a couple, something Tim does not particularly mind, and Tim opens the door to the suite with almost imperceptibly shaking hands. The lights are dim, low amber diffusing through the suite, and Tim sets their coats on the rack before bidding Ra’s to sit on the couch while he retrieves his photography albums. Ra’s thigh touches his in the hazy light when the albums open across their laps, and his mouth purses slightly in a smile that Tim quickly chases away with the cerise blush that fills his cheekbones. Ra’s is praising his work, slender, strong, elegant fingers rubbing across the cellophane that covers each print protectively. Each stroke along the curve of a subject’s cheek feels like a personal caress, but the feeling intensifies by one hundred, one thousand, one million when Ra’s finally makes it to the self portraits that Tim had taken several months ago, black and white and set carefully in the back of the third album. Ra’s’ finger slides down the arch of Tim’s back, his spine outlined in shadow and pearly gray, the man’s pupils dilating until they are dark enough to swallow Tim whole.

“You are,” Ra’s starts, his voice low velvet across Tim’s alert nerves, “the finest thing I have ever seen.” His fingers leave the page, and they are hot across Tim’s jaw when they brush the strands of his hair back and cup around his flushed cheek. His lips press against Tim’s forehead, and Tim feels he cannot breathe, lust constricting his throat until he is panting silently against Ra’s’ skin. “You are the most exquisite,” Ra’s murmurs, and Tim’s hand is weak where it rests on Ra’s’ broad shoulder.

“I- I do not know what to say,” Tim begins, his voice a papery shred of narcissus petals across the winter frost in this fire of a room. Ra’s smiles in a manner that makes an ache tug and twist in Tim’s stomach, his breath coming even shorter when the man’s cinnamon and hot spice scent spills across his face at Ra’s’ proximity.

“You do not have to say anything, Timothy,” Ra’s’ voice entices and Tim is falling against his chest, letting himself be plied and pulled and twisted up in Ra’s’ hands like pearlescent taffy in the cogs of a candy puller, until his neck rests across the arch of Ra’s’ shoulder and his back is settled as though it were a puzzle piece against Ra’s’ chest. “You must only sing,” Ra’s whispers, hot words across Tim’s throat, and he moans, breathless, into the air, his eyes sliding shut at each soft caress of perfectly formed hands across his chest.

“My perfect nightingale,” Ra’s hands are cupping his thighs, spreading them until the black slacks are framing Ra’s’, the bulge of Tim’s erection evident even in the low light. He arches, mouth seeking, and Ra’s cannot refuse the pleas of this bird, laid out by lust for a man he hardly even knows. Ra’s’ tongue fucks in without any delicacy, swallowing, consuming, and he rocks his own erection up into the swell of Tim’s ass, cupping the nightingale’s pale jaw before he lifts the man’s head from his own and slips two fingers into his hot, begging mouth.

“You beg to be filled,” he whispers, seduction twining across Timothy’s burning skin as he bucks upward, wishing, wanting for a touch more than the tightness of his slacks. “You plead for me, for me to lay you out across my silken sheets and mark you until your skin glows red with the evidence of my desire for you. Your spine arches and I can almost taste your wails as I force you past the point of no return, ribbons tied tight around your cock and your wrists and your entire pleasure dependent on _me_ ,” he skims his hands up Tim’s thighs, fingers slick with the man’s saliva and ears full of the whimpering keening noises leaving the red rosebud of Tim’s mouth. His hands frame Tim’s erection and one of them loosens the waistband, unzips the silver teeth, fingers cupping the bulge restrained now only by cotton boxers, thumb tapping the wet spot the highlights the tip.

Tim nearly convulses, and he cannot believe that he is here- here, in this man’s lap, his mouth shameless and his body arching into that heated touch- he is dizzy, with wine and with lust, and even the sight of his photo albums carelessly opened on the table does not make him cease his pleas for more. Ra’s is not giving him enough, not nearly enough to satisfy the painful ache that rolls his hips upwards unconsciously.

“I _need_ ,” he keens, Ra’s’ fingers soothing through his hair while the other hand tugs his boxers down and slides up his cock, pressing it flush against his twitching stomach muscles.

“Shh,” Ra’s’ murmurs, finger slipping against the leaking slit. “I know what you need, Timothy, I know what you ache for and I shall give it to you, precious bird.” His teeth sink deep, red welling in the marks, Tim’s wails, his convulsing muscles, send frissons of nuclear-level heat into his bones. Tim’s cock pulses beneath his fingers and it’s purpling at the tip, precome dripping down the shaft until he is slick with pearly fluid. “Oh, Timothy, beautiful nightingale, beautiful boy,” Ra’s bites again, hand curling around the heated flesh. “Your passion makes you- wet, wet like a woman,” Ra’s is growling,” and your lust befits your beauty.”

“ _Please_ ,” Tim begs, and Ra’s, merciful to this fragile bird, gives forth. He scratches a red, stinging line up Timothy’s stomach before tapping at the head of his dick, before wrapping hot fingers around the shaft and rubbing a thumb between his thighs on that smooth expanse, swallowing Tim’s cries when he comes hard enough to render him blind. He cradles the slender man to his chest, kissing his heated cheeks and stroking his hair with sticky fingers as Tim dozes against his pulse point.

Timothy Drake, Ra’s decides, in this infinite twilight moment, is everything he has ever wanted in a consort.

He single-handedly types out a request for his pilot to be on the ready for a possibly sudden departure before setting his phone on the table and hitting send, standing and striding towards the bedroom with Timothy in his arms. 

\-----

It is dark when he awakes, fingers curled in the downy expanse of his ivory pillow and the indent of another, larger body dipping the bed on the other side. It is not surprising to Tim that Ra’s is not here- he is familiar with the concept of a one night stand, after all, despite his many years spent simply observing society and not participating in it at all. He stretches, lets his back arch, feels the sweet tense of his stomach muscles and his thighs, so unused to the exercise they recieved last night. And- his hand hits the crinkle of paper, laid out on the adjacent pillow, fingers scrabbling to pick it up. He squints in the dim light, the curtains blocking most of the morning sun from his vision. A note, from Ra’s, explaining his absence.

 _I regret that I had to leave your side this morning, but I had business to attend to, my nightingale_ , Tim reads. _I should dearly love to see you again._

The note is the beginning of a rather longer string of events than Tim had anticipated in accepting Ra’s’ first offer of a date.

\-----

They spend much of the next several weeks in each other’s company, between Ra’s’ business meetings and Timothy’s solitary strolls about the city. Tim rents out his suite for more days, setting his departure date for the end of the month.

He has resolved it- no matter how surreal this tryst has been, he must leave. He must move on. He isn’t very good at taking care of people that become dear to him, and so he must be the one to leave Ra’s in the dust.

And in between their solitude, Timothy sets up his camera and brings it in his satchel. His make-shift dark room has a clothesline strung with photographs he has taken, the profile of Ra’s’ jaw, his nose, his mouth, the dark kohl line of his eyelashes standing out from each black and white shot, spattered in between the winter colors of the other photographs documenting the city’s switch to spring. There is a carefulness to each shot, the shots Tim takes for his records despite his eidetic memory. Because he knows that he will be leaving, soon, jettisoning off on a plane and leaving this man and his embraces behind. He will carefully tack them behind cellophane and let the arch of the bridge of Ra’s’ nose lead straight into the dip of his own spine.

And then he will try to forget, because this does not mean anything at all. It is a winter affair. The dinners, quiet and intimate, and the flowers in the hallway, and the scarf he wraps so tight around his neck with the smell of Ra’s still lingering on its folds- they are nothing in the great and powerful sandglass of time. Single grains, falling from the present of Timothy’s life into the past. No, he does not need the kisses or the touches, and he does not need those sharp, incredibly brilliant eyes on him. He does not need the way that Ra’s treats him as though he is a porcelain doll, to be treasured and worshiped and never sullied at all. (And sometimes perhaps he wishes he could be sullied because Ra’s never takes them past the point of no return, not truly, Ra’s never lets Timothy have what he really wants, in the end, and Tim always wakes up with his underwear on and Ra’s a foot away from him on the bed and the sticky heat of dreams where Tim has ridden Ra’s into exhaustion lingering between his hip bones.) Timothy will not admit that sometimes he does not want to leave this city at all.

Timothy does not want to admit that perhaps he is falling in _love_.

\-----

On the last day of winter, Timothy places his printed boarding pass on the mahogany table in the entrance hall as he enters the suite, the whistle of a tea kettle already bubbling through the doorway to the small kitchenette. Ra’s stands there, nonchalant, two tea cups on the table and a strainer with chai masala already set in it next to the porcelain tea pot. He has Tim’s copy of _The Great Gatsby_ in his hand, and Tim almost snorts to see it, the small paperback dwarfed by thos elegant hands.

“It is invariably saddening,” Ra’s begins, “To look through new eyes at things upon-”

“Which you have expended your own powers of adjustment,” Tim finishes, setting his coat upon the divan and shucking his shoes, leaning against the couch, eyes coolly amused. He has already begun detaching himself, and both of them know it, even though Ra’s does not know when that detachment will become final. “I see you’ve found your way through my favorite.”

Ra’s is very much aware that his move must be placed now, and he pours the boiling water into the tea pot, over the leaves, settling the strainer in place and carrying it delicately to the table, gesturing for Tim to sit.

“Come, nightingale, we have much to discuss while the leaves steep.” Tim sits, his chair screeching slightly as he scoots it in and fiddles with the handle of his teacup, tracing the gilded edge.

“Much to discuss,” he murmurs, tapping the tabletop once before looking up at Ra’s. “I suppose we should begin, then. I have things I need to see to this afternoon.” The silence stills the room, and Ra’s eyes are darker than Tim has ever seen them when his hand reaches out and grasps Timothy’s.

“You are leaving,” he says, and it’s not a question. They both know that it was going to happen sooner or later- they both have different ways of dealing with it. Tim has told himself it’s for the better.

Ra’s has simply told himself that he must make a more enticing deal to persuade Tim from leaving his side.

“Yes,” Tim breathes out heavily, fingers curling around Ra’s’ knuckles. “I am.”

“Is there nothing I can do to convince you to stay here? To stay within this city?”

“I cannot stay here any longer,” Tim’s lips are the touch of everything Ra’s is fighting for, brushing across the back of the older man’s hand. “I am not made for a single place, when it is not my home. I have to leave- I have to expand- I have to travel on, Ra’s. I have stayed in this city too long, I have grown _attached_. I am practically _allelopathic_ and I fear that if I stay much longer-”

“But if you did not stay here,” Ra’s begins, pressing forward, his chest clinking against the tea cup. “If, instead, the constant variable was not the city but the companion?”

“Do you want to be the companion to my Doctor?” Tim laughs, soft and low, staring at the designs on the handle of the teapot, the steam curling from its tip. “Do you want to follow me?”

“No,” Ra’s squeezes his hand, that regal posture straightening again. “I do not want to follow you, Timothy. I want to lead you.”

“Where?” he asks, caught off guard, the bafflement in his tone evident.

“A place that I know well you shall like,” Ra’s kisses his wrist, a votive expression upon his pulse. “My home.”

\-----

Timothy does not agree easily, but in the end, he _does_ agree, and his flight is canceled, his seat given to a grandmother hoping to visit her grandson in Nanda Parbat. Instead of boarding a flight on the first day of spring, he packs his bags over the course of another day, rolling his two suitcases down the runway towards the private plane waiting for him at the other end. The golden insignia, the green curling around it- it shines through this spring fog like gems set into the bone white of the plane itself. Ra’s is waiting for him at the top of the stairway, his hands outstretched to help Tim through the door once he gives his bags to the man waiting at the bottom of the gangplank.

“I am glad you decided to come, Beloved,” Ra’s’ hands rest on his hips, leading him to a luxurious bench seat, one of the four bench seats that sit in a circle around a round coffee table.

“I hope you make me similarly glad about that decision,” Tim replies, sitting, crossing his legs, his satchel resting beside him on the seat. Ra’s sits on the couch next to him, signalling to the stewardess as the door shuts and the pilot begins preparing for take off. His fingers trail down Tim’s neck with a singular purpose, and the younger man shivers, turning to look out the window when Ra’s’ lips rest against his ear.

“I do not believe you shall regret it,” Ra’s murmurs, that sickening lurch of take off settling deep in Timothy’s stomach, knocking him off balance, backwards into Ra’s’ arms. They closed tight around him, gates locking across his chest, a palm resting over the bulge in his pants. Tim shook his head, staring pointedly at the stewardess who was making drinks, pouring hot water, swilling tea leaves about- Ra’s chuckled low in his ear. “Do not mind her,” he murmurs, slipping his other hand until he can capture Tim’s wrists with his considerably larger fingers. “She is of no consequence.”

“Ra’s, not- not here,” Tim stutters, but Ra’s has already slipped his hand into Tim’s pants, over his boxers, pressing down, kneading against his hardening erection. “I- oh- _ahn_ -” Tim rocks up into the hand, and Ra’s knows he’d won the battle before Timothy even knew it was beginning. His teeth graze across Tim’s jaw and he soaks up the man’s keening moan before he draws back to press his lips to Timothy’s ear. Tim wants to be bitten- a well placed bite to his neck can set him off into convulsions at the right moment, but Ra’s wants to make him wait. He’s feeling a little vindictive, and Tim’s still sort of struggling against the idea of their affections being so... _public_. He palms the wet spot growing in Timothy’s boxers (he always gets so slick), taking in the shuddering jump of his stomach muscles.

“Oh _yes_ , right here,” Ra’s purrs, his thumb stroking Tim’s wrists where he’s still restraining him. Tim’s whimper, his arch- it is not enough to break him from the hold and his eyes are hooded, pupils dilated, his hips twitching unconsciously into Ra’s palm. “You are so shy, but with no reason, Timothy. You have a body so beautiful it drives me to lust without intent- you are a queen among those I came to search for a mate within. And if I had my way,” Tim muffles his cry against Ra’s’ collar, his legs spreading, ankle hooking across Ra’s’ calf, “you would be _mine_. In the time of the kings that I come from, in the time when we ruled, I would have laid you out on a dais padded with silks. I would have adorned your body with gems, had maidservants paint your body with hennas and you would lay, a work of art, beneath me.” Tim’s spine juddered, his cheeks flushing deeply as the stewardess brought their tea over and left it on the table, asking Ra’s if that would be all and bowing deeply when Ra’s dismissed her nonchalantly. He hid his face and Ra’s cooed down at him as though he were a recalcitrant, shy child hiding from company. “Oh, Timothy,” he pressed kisses, butterfly soft, across Tim’s cheek.

“I would leave you bare and watch the blood rise in your cheeks, feel the murmuring jealousy of the court that cannot have you. Let your cries echo through the hall, spilling from the dais while you writhe in ecstasy. I would have them know what they are not worthy of, of your pleasure, of this beauty, of you pressing so perfectly into my touch-” Tim’s cry shuddered through Ra’s’ collarbone, the vibrations sparking fire in his gut. He pressed harder, kneaded faster, rubbed against the twitching head of Tim’s erection with merciless intent.

“Ra’s,” he begged, fingers clutching at the fabric they were nearest to. “Ra’s, I- I _cannot_ -”

“Oh, but you can,” Ra’s murmured. “You are so much more than you think, precious, Beloved, _ya hayati_ . You must only let me bring you this pleasure, _habibi_ , give yourself over to me and, for once, do not _think_.”

“Ra’s,” his voice was raw, high whimpers escaping his bitten lips as he sprawled back and pushed up into the man’s hand, hips working faster as he approached orgasm. He could not- he could not even _comprehend_ half of what Ra’s was saying, that distracting, pulsing touch to his cock sending him into the hazed bits of his hindbrain. “Ra’s, Ra’s, _Ra’s_ -”

“That’s it, nightingale,” his teeth bit into Tim’s shoulder, “sing for me,” and the younger man’s muscles tightened, his mouth opening in a high, clear wail as he came, jerking up against Ra’s’ hands and sobbing into Ra’s’ throat when Ra’s’ clever fingers worked their way into his boxers to slip up and down his come-slick cock, teasing sensitive nerves and rubbing sticky fluid into his skin.

“Too much,” Tim rasped, jerking weakly against the hold on his wrists. Ra’s let him go, sliding his hand from Tim’s boxers and slipping his fingers in his mouth, sucking them obscenely as he rocked his own erection against Tim’s lower back.

“ _Oh_ you are exquisite, beloved bird,” but Tim was not amused by his platitudes, sliding off of Ra’s’ lap and sprawling across the couch, the flush on his cheeks not solely arousal, shading into frustration when he finally undid his pants and sighted the sticky mess of his boxers. Ra’s clicked his tongue, lazily rubbing his erection through his suit pants. “That is truly too bad,” he smirked, leaning his head back against the couch and watching Tim’s cheeks flush even brighter as he peeked under the hem of his boxers at the mess, the normally reserved man mumbling wildly under his breath, threats Ra’s couldn’t quite make out. “After all, there will be no time for you to change before I introduce you to my family.”

Tim looked at him with rage enough that he moaned, low and exultant, and reached out to press fingers against the soft heat of his cheek. Tim jerked away, and Ra’s laughed through his own pleasure. “Oh, pretty nightingale, there is no need to be upset. They had to learn who you belonged to at some point.”

“I don’t belong to anyone,” Tim snapped huffily, standing on unsteady feet and stalking off towards the bathroom, grabbing a box of sanitary wipes from the first-aid cabinet before locking himself in.

Foolish bird. Uncaged, yes, and he did not belong in chains held by another- but he was not without his bonds. He could protest it all he liked, but the truth had already been set- would be concrete when Ra’s’ family bowed their heads to Timothy on the airstrip in a mere matter of hours and accepted Ra’s’ claim over the slender young man.

This king _would_ have his queen.

\-----

They land on the airstrip near his main palatial compound without much ceremony, four hours of Timothy turning his shoulder to Ra’s spent in Ra’s’ amused silence and Timothy’s huffy breaths. His family is waiting for them when Tim descends the stairs, frigid look on his face and his hand rigid in Ra’s’.

“Did you kidnap him, father?” the elegant woman asks, amusement in her voice as she looks between the two of them, and Ra’s laughs out loud.

“I have offended him, it seems, by placing my claim, Talia _habibti_ ,” He offers forth, letting go of Timothy’s hand for a moment to crush his daughter to him in a warm embrace. Bruce is next, patting Ra’s on the back with a strong hand, and Tim shrinks in his coat at the sight of the man he had, in one hazy time, back when he had things and was not simply a shell, idolized. And then a boy, strong and tall, much taller than Tim himself, steps forward and embraces Ra’s with the smallest smile Tim has ever seen on his face.

“Grandfather, I missed your presence,” the boy murmurs, and Tim is ultimately confused. And even more confused, when _Jason_ _Todd_ steps forward, taller and older than Tim had ever seen him, and hugs Ra’s with the force that Tim remembers, with the grip that had pulled him from his uncle’s tangling, twisting, burning arms.

“Missed you too, _jiddo_ ,” Jason mutters, and all Timothy can think is ‘grandfather _grandfather_ _**grandfather** _ how can this possibly be Ra’s _grandson_ how can _Jason_ be here how can-’

Before all is spinning and he is descending into a rush of darkness, Ra’s voice following him down.

\-----

When Tim comes to, he has the entirely surreal experience of lying on a bed of silk scarves listening to the man he used to stalk give sex tips and dating advice to his current lover. Who is apparently the first man’s grandfather. Which Tim still hasn’t figured out, but- nonetheless, it’s very disconcerting, and he’s quite glad that his eyes opening in the middle of Jason spouting off a sentence about how _‘ rimming always gets the quiet ones to go wild_ ’ seems to cut off that train of thought before he can faint again from the sheer embarrassment of it all.

“Oh, _hey_ there, _tetta_ ,” Jason exclaims, realized he’s awake now, and he leans forward to plant a huge kiss on Tim’s cheek. Tim’s fairly sure he’s a bright cerise at this point, so he simply arches his brow confusedly and looks to Ra’s.

“Tay-tuh?” he asks, becoming aware of Ra’s hand stroking over his wrist.

“Grandmother,” Ra’s says wryly, and then Tim remembers he’s annoyed with Ra’s and pulls his hand from Ra’s fingers, sitting up and crossing his legs.

“I’m going to guess that him calling you _jiddo_ earlier meant grandfather,” Tim says, rueful, smiling slightly at Jason before glaring at Ra’s. “Which is rather baffling to me, honestly, considering I was under the impression you were in your late twenties.” Ra’s coughs, looking almost ashamed of himself (if Tim didn’t know better and already know that there’s no _way_ Ra’s simply _forgot_ to tell him), and Jason laughs raucously, throwing his head back. “I’m really not old enough to be a grandmother, Ra’s.”

“Oh my _god_ , _jiddo_ , you didn’t even _tell_ him.” Jason grins like a shark and reaches forward to smack another kiss on Tim’s cheek. “Aw, baby. Well, what’s your name anyway? Grandfather wouldn’t tell us and I’m kinda jonesin’ to know how a spook like him got a cutie like you to come back to home base.”

“I’m-” he clears his throat nervously, and sits up straighter. “My name is Timothy Drake.”

He’s really- well, the almost comical widening of Jason’s eyes is really better than the anger he’d sort of expected to come from him.

“You- no. Timmy?” Jason coughs out a startled laugh, shaking his head and slapping Ra’s’ arm with a casual attitude that Tim imagines might get a lesser man beheaded. “Oh my god, _jiddo_ . You’re hooking up with a kid I- jesus _christ_. You’re little Timmy, the one with the creepy as fuck uncle.”

“The what?” Ra’s asks, narrowing his eyes at Jason, and Tim clears his throat again.

“Jason had, well, many years ago. He, um. He happened to save me from a fairly sticky situation. I was very grateful for it. That- it caught me vastly off guard to run into him and Bruce here, of all places. They disappeared from Gotham’s high society only two weeks before my parents were killed, and I had thought I’d never see them again.”

“Yeah, eight-fuckin- _years_ ago. But you were younger when I met you, right? I mean, I pulled the creep-ass offa you when you were, what, eight? I was only eleven, you know. Bruce had just picked me up and stuff.”

“This really doesn’t help me at all with the current situation, though,” Tim grumbles, picking nervously at his pants hem. “Where, you know, I’m dating a man with a twenty-three year old grandson.” Ra’s does not seem abashed in the least when Tim narrows his eyes back at him.

“I am rather older than I appear,” Ra’s eventually says, his voice rather lame with the sheer understatement it contains.

“Yes, I gathered that. How old, exactly?” Jason’s still laughing his ass off while Ra’s coughs, stalling obviously. “ _**Ra’s**_. How. _Old_. Are. You.”

“I appear to be about, well- four hundred and forty eight years? Perhaps four hundred and fifty three? I lost count during the Black Plague,” Ra’s shrugs, and Tim nearly growls with frustration.

“Am I dating a _demon_ or something? Are you a- are you some sort of _demigod_? How in the world is this _possible_?” Tim is entirely baffled, and doesn’t entirely- well. He followed Batman and Robin for three years, and he’s seen some truly inspired strangeness. It’s not really the age that gets him, oddly enough. It’s the fact that he’s been so out of the loop these past four or five weeks, coupled with the lies Ra’s has told him, and added to the mess of coming face to face with the two most important people he’d left behind, in his old life before he’d lost everyone he’d cared about.

“I utilize a natural phenomenon of earth magic. It’s called the Lazarus Pit,” Ra’s begins, but Tim cuts him off with a wave of his hand, and Ra’s seems sort of offended by that, but sits back and lets Tim mumble to himself.

“I’m actually dating a myth,” Tim sighs, massaging the bridge of his nose briefly. “You are actually a myth and I am actually here in your palace and Jason Todd is actually sitting right there and this is actually _happening_.”

“Yes,” Ra’s sounds unsure as to whether he should be comforting Timothy or taking measures to make sure he doesn’t have a fit of hysterics right here and right now. “Several months ago I took a routine dip in the Lazarus pit and emerged from it a younger man than usual, appearing physically to be in my mid-twenties. I had- well. Some eighteen years ago my first grandson, Damian, was conceived by Bruce Wayne and my daughter Talia. When Damian was one and a half years old, Bruce learned of his existence. Talia and Bruce married, but it was only some years after Jason had been adopted by them that Talia finally convinced Bruce to come live here in the main Al Ghul palace, when Jason suffered an accident and needed time away from Gotham to recuperate. Since then, these past eight years have been rather filled with watching Bruce and Talia raise Jason and Damian. The palace has been- entirely permeated with the vastness of their laughter, and I found myself watching their family more and more. I never had love like what was between them. Even Talia’s mother, Melisande, left me, finding me far too cold and power-driven to give her the kind of love that she needed.” Ra’s sighed, his eyes dark.

“I raised Talia with an iron hand, but somehow she managed to find the capacity within her to fall deeply in love with Bruce, and I was jealous. Just now, after this last visit to the Lazarus Pit, was I realizing how truly empty my life had become. I have the power, the wealth, the influence, the heirs- everything I had wanted for the past centuries. But I did not have someone to share my throne with, and it saddened me. So, finding myself young and finding that my daughter and son-in-law were more than capable of handling things in my absence, I vowed to go out into the world and find that person. A- a queen, of sorts. A grandmother for my dearly adored grandchildren. Someone that I should be able to share my life with. I was tired of so many centuries alone, Timothy. And you caught my eye like no one ever had before.” Jason fake-gagged, but Ra’s glare was enough to silence him. Tim took a deep breath, letting his legs unfold as he stood, somewhat unsteadily, from his bed.

“Ra’s,” he murmured, reaching forward with to cup Ra’s face and press a soft kiss to his lips before smiling rather sharply at him, knowing that Ra’s could see the simmering annoyance there in his eyes.

“I understand if you wish to say goodbye, Timothy,” Ra’s whispered, his hand coming up to stroke a strand of Tim’s hair back behind his ear. “But I feel it only fair to warn you that you shall not get far. I have grown rather attached to you.”

“Now that’s not like you at all,” Tim laughed sarcastically, rubbing a thumb across Ra’s cheek and looking into his eyes, tinged with green and glowing faintly in the dim light. “Ra’s Al Ghul? _Manipulating_ me? _**Never** _.”

“Is it manipulation, hmm?” Ra’s’ smile was slathered with the type of mischief Tim had come to expect, and he laughed a tad bitterly before stepping back.

“This is rather a lot to assimilate, you living in a palace with Gotham’s high society darlings, a magical eternity pit, and the riches you’ve gotten over your _centuries_ of life, Ra’s. It’s only rational to expect that I should at the very least wish myself some space to think this whole situation over.” Tim raised an eyebrow. “I believe I shall come to terms with it in the days to come, when your grandsons are showing me all of the sights you promised I would get to visit here in your home.” Jason’s laugh echoed around the stone room, and he clapped a hand against Tim’s shoulder companionably even as Ra’s narrowed his eyes at Tim and huffed through his nose. Tim narrowed his eyes back. _I suppose you shouldn’t have lied to me, hmm?_ He thought, a little vindictive voice laughing at the back of his mind.   _Perhaps then I would not have pushed you away now that you have finally gotten me where you want me._

\----- 

Dinner with the Al Ghul family is another exercise in absurdity, but not in an unpleasant way. Tim is still coming to terms with the fact that he’s been romanced by a four hundred something year old king, and the pleasant raucous atmosphere at the table is loud enough to let him forget a little of the strangeness he’s dealt with today. He’s almost fully forgiven Ra’s for his antics on the plane (and he hasn’t forgiven him at all for the lies, but there’s really no use in giving him the cold shoulder, so Tim’s still figuring out how he’s going to get back at Ra’s for that whole debacle). Jason’s laughter booms around the huge dining hall from the seat next to Talia, and Damian’s acerbic quips have made him laugh silently into his chai masala more than once. Bruce has an indulgent smile on his face, and he’s been catching up with Tim ever since they sat down.

There was the appropriate amount of sympathy for Timothy’s loss- he is grateful, as ever, for the tact that Bruce shows when he does not linger on the topic. Talia is polite, but she’s been focusing on her sons and trying to get them not to throw food at each other, and Tim understands her distraction is not truly from a lack of interest, as she offers forth an invitation to join her in the solarium for tea tomorrow afternoon. Alfred sits at the end of the table, quiet as Tim remembers, a warm smile lurking around the corners of his time-worn face as he directs the servants setting plates on the table at the beginning of each course. Damian’s- Ra’s says he is Damian’s first harem boy, and this doesn’t quite make sense to Tim yet, but Damian’s harem boy is sitting beside him quietly, an amused look on his face while he slowly eats and watches Damian and Jason bicker.

His name is Dick Grayson, and he was apparently an acrobat in a circus that came too close to Al Ghul territory earlier this year and had to pay the penalty. Damian had chosen him out of all the people he could have possibly chosen from, so Tim thinks there must be something rather... extraordinary about him. From what he’s seen of Damian so far this morning, Damian is a boy of picky tastes and formality that must have been inherited directly from his grandfather. Ra’s sits, of course, next to Tim, and though he tries to place his hand on Tim’s thigh in the beginning, Tim thinks the icy smile he shot him was quite enough to scare it back into Ra’s’ personal space.

It is strange to have Jason and Damian already calling him _tetta, grandmother_ , and to have Talia embrace him so warmly after the meal before Ra’s leads him off down a corridor adjacent to the dining hall, but it is not exactly objectionable.

Tim has always been rather good at being blase in the strangest of situations, though.

Ra’s leads him to broad, double wooden doors. They’re carved in an exquisite pattern, the flames of hellfire reaching up one panel and the garden of Demeter sprawling down from the top right corner, Hades and Persephone meeting in the center, their clasped hands forming the iron lock in the middle of the two doors.

“I always felt that perhaps Persephone was not exactly forced down to Hades’ domain,” Ra’s remarks softly as he taps several intricate mechanisms on the lock and the doors begin to swing open, the ancient lovers parting to let Timothy and Ra’s inside. “Perhaps she rather longed for freedom from her mother’s rule. Above ground she was a mere demigoddess, forever a maiden,” Ra’s turns towards Tim, leading him into the chamber before shutting the doors behind them. “But by Hades’ side she was a queen, beloved and adored.”

“An interesting way to look at it,” Tim murmurs. The room is vast, a long, wide dais of cushions sitting at the far end, piled before a roaring fire set in a humongous fireplace of carved rocks with a metal cage across the front of it to keep people from falling in. The metal cage itself is even beautiful, a finely wrought panel of twisting vines and small metal flowers that is backlit quite fetchingly by the flames. As they cross the rugs towards the fireplace and the two doors, one on either side of the fire, Tim peers at it, almost touching it when he’s close enough to inspect it fully.

“I had it created when Talia was an infant, just learning to crawl,” Ra’s murmurs. “I did not want her to be harmed by the fires, and Melisande would often bring her here so that we might spend time as a family.” He shrugs, turning towards the door on the right of the fireplace. “It was only when Damian was born that I had it brought out again and realized that I had not spent any time in front of it as a family at all. But,” he cleared his throat, “there are other things to show you. This room, to the right, is a bathroom. It connects to another room still, a bedroom, which has a door into the hallway that will allow you to enter this common room through either the hallway or the bedroom. The door to the left is my bedroom, also connecting to the bathroom. If you need me for anything-”

“Ra’s,” Tim interrupted. “Are we not to be sleeping together?”

“I had assumed you would want your privacy, nightingale,” Ra’s said softly, rubbing a thumb across his cheekbone and looking down at him with dark eyes. Tim smiled ruefully and pressing his hand to Ra’s before hooking his fingers in Ra’s collar and attempting to drag him downwards.

“Ra’s, I am not so incensed with you that I should want to keep you from my bed, you foolish man,” Tim murmured. “I have been wanting you since the beginning of our meal, when you placed your hand on my thigh. It would be very... insensitive of you to ignore my need for you,” Tim licked his lips and let his eyes grown hooded with lust. It would be counterintuitive to deny _himself_ pleasure simply because he was at some odds with his lover. Ra’s’ growl shook him to the core.

“Allow me, then, Beloved, to show you my quarters.”

\-----

The nights are almost stifling here in the palace, when Tim awakes in the thick of one and blinks up at the thick velvet of the shadows in Ra’s’ bedroom. His thighs ache a little bit, the twinges of muscles used for uncommon things harries him when he slides out from under the covers and wraps himself in the thick fabric of a sweater he pulls from one of Ra’s’ hangers. Ra’s slumbers peacefully, his face relaxed and hair somewhat mussed where it spills in a dark halo around his head on the pillow. The floor isn’t cold, not here, but once he enters the hallway the stones are ice beneath his bare feet. He doesn’t mind it much- he’s never minded the cold, and so he follows the small wall lights down the dimly lit corridor until he reaches what he supposes must be the solarium during the daylight hours. His breath spikes for a moment when he realizes there is someone else here, but- it’s only Jason, looking out across the land below where he stands on an open balcony, the glass doors spread wide open in the violet night.

“That’s not a very good outfit to escape in, Tim,” Jason murmurs when he joins Jason on the balcony, leaning against the carved banister and tugging the sweater down further so that it almost hits his knees. Tim laughed softly, dangling his limp hands over the darkness for a moment. He turned towards Jason, eyes catching on the silver thatch that spread across his hairline, brilliantly lit against his black locks.

“Good thing I’m not trying to escape,” he murmurs back, taking in Jason’s loose pants and the open robe, a dark plum bruise spreading across his left pectoral. _Over his heart_ , Tim thinks absently before reaching out and ghosting three fingers across it. “What happened here?”

Jason’s laugh is bitter, sad, the taste of tea steeped too long and tears pent up past their due date. “A woman,” he mutters, pressing his hand to it briefly before he laughs again. “It’s not a problem, really. But she’s a stubborn one, and she hits like a fucking tank.”

“And she lives here?” Tim said after a moment, raising an eyebrow. He eyed the bruise again, fingers tugging at the hem of the sweater reflexively and mind racing. What woman would dare hit a son of the Al Ghul family? Unless Jason had been-

“I brought her back,” Jason grumbled. “She was- I found her. In a rival compound I was visiting for an ambassadors’ conference.” He sighs, grimacing slightly before staring at Tim out of the corner of his eye. “You know that look, the kicked puppy look? The kind people get when- when they’ve been treated badly for so long that they simply expect it?” Tim nodded. “She was bruised to all hell, cut up and beat up and torn up everywhere. _Everywhere_ . Wearing this ridiculous little outfit like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve never seen- we don’t do that here. Our harem can wear what ever they want, and they’re really more like our wards than a true harem. Never forced, never _violated_ , not like she was. But I saw her one day, wearing this idiotic little half shirt and a fucking tiny sarong and these bangles all up and down her, and this guy was just _beating_ on her.” Jason looked at Tim, and his eyes were haunted- Tim shuddered slightly, Jason’s fists clenching at the memory before he continued. “I nearly killed him. But I- I didn’t, and then, she was there, just- just the most beautiful chick you’ve ever seen, this fucking _angel_ all bruised and crumpled on the floor, like someone’d ripped her fuckin’ _wings_ off or something.” He shrugged, another hollow laugh echoing down across the banister. “So I picked her up and took her on home. She’s healing up good, but she’s still healing, you know?”

“You’re like Bruce in that regard, aren’t you?” Tim’s lips quirked up a  little when Jason shot him a confused glance. “Picking up strays all over the place.” Jason grinned at him, fox’s teeth in the moonlight.

“I suppose,” he tapped his fingers across the banister. “I can’t save all the ladies, though. Can’t pick up all the strays.”

“Am I Ra’s’ attempt at picking up strays?” Tim can’t help it, he just says it before he really thinks about it, but he knows it was a mistake as soon as the words leave his mouth. He’s heard it many times from Ra’s, who is constantly calling him beloved, is constantly telling him what his worth is, so great and precious that Ra’s doubts there is another gem so worthy on this whole earth. But looking out at this vast kingdom, hearing Jason speak, he wonders.

Why would Ra’s need him if he has all of this?

“You know you aren’t,” Jason says steadily, his hand settling on Tim’s shoulder briefly before Tim’s pulled into a warm cinnamon and arnica scented hug. “ _Jiddo_ don’t pick up anyone he doesn’t mean to. And I saw the way he looked at you when you were out, Timmy. He doesn’t want to give himself more weakness, but I gotta say it- I honestly think he sees something when he looks at B and Talia and he just gets so jealous he doesn’t have someone he thinks is worthy to share somethin’ like that with. And if he thinks you’re the one that’ll be able to share it with him, like an equal, well,” Jason shrugged. “I wouldn’t argue with the dude who’s like five hundred years old.”

“Well, that’s the point, _habibi_ ,” a warm voice murmurs behind them, and Tim starts violently before spinning around, facing Talia with wide eyes as Jason smirks sleepily over his shoulder at his stepmother. Talia smiles, more gently than Tim is expecting, where she’s leaning against the door post that leads out to the balcony Tim’s standing on. “Not everyone would be strong enough, clever enough, brave enough to deny Ra’s Al Ghul something or argue with his point of view.” She shrugged slightly, her smile growing as she tied her robe tighter. “Timothy, do not doubt your worth. My father does not bother with things unworthy of his time, nor does he deign to be troubled by those who are not courageous enough to share his throne. You would do well to understand that while my father is not always an honest man, he does not lie about his heart, nor would he harm one who holds it.” Tim bowed his head slightly, crossing his arms against his chest and blinking at the stone ground.

“I... will take that into consideration.” He smiled softly at Talia. “Thank you. I am often foolish and find myself caught in the quagmire of self doubt.”

“It is partly your modesty that makes you attractive to him, have no doubt,” Talia’s teeth flash in the darkness. “I am sure he would be happy to build you up until you touched the sky, Timothy.”

“That sounds like grandfather’s style,” Jason laughed, tying his own robe and clapping a hand across Tim’s shoulders before passing him. He bent down far enough to kiss Talia’s cheek as he walked through the doorway into the solarium. “Goodnight, Mama. Goodnight, Tim.”

Talia stared at him for a few long moments before she too turned towards the room within, nodding her goodnight to Tim even as she disappeared into the shadows. He sighed heavily, wrapping his arms as close as possible.

He longed for the heat of Ra’s beside him, out here in the chill of the desert night. With another sigh, he turned towards Ra’s’ room, padding softly down the corridors in search of the bed’s warm haven.

\----- 

“Why do you call me that? Nightingale, I mean,” Tim asks drowsily one twilight, bathed in the soft silver glow of the stars above and swathed in delicate patterns on silk scarfs that wrap like lovers around his slim, pale form. Ra’s fingers are tracing designs on his back and his eyes say how much he wants to take a paintbrush to the canvas of Tim’s back.

“I call you as such for what it means, nightingale,” Ra’s murmurs, his mouth pressing prayers down the ridge of the younger’s spine.  
“Am I your muse?” Tim asks, but he is joking, the laugh spinning along the edge of his lilac voice, rough with exhaustion. Ra’s does not laugh along: his fingers twine the silks and pull them from his lover’s skin, baring him in the dark of their sheltered corner until he is the moon in Ra’s sky and he lies naked on the bed of silks, staring up at Ra’s with dark eyes that glitter under his thick, velvet eyelashes.

“Farther back still,” Ra’s begins, his nails scraping delicately down Tim’s hip bone and his eyes soaking up the man’s shiver. “Farther back still than when the nightingale’s song meant muse, Beloved. When the queen among men, Philomel, turned to a nightingale and sang her songs- then. In the times when the nightingale sang one thousand songs of laments, and his tragedy was so beautiful that it put us all to tears.”  

He places a kiss on the soft, sweet plane of Timothy’s sternum, closing his eyes and feeling the heartbeat beneath the thin, almost translucent pale skin. Timothy’s fingers tangle in his hair, shorter now that he has just recently been to the pit, and Ra’s can feel the benediction of his Beloved’s lips where they press to his forehead and smooth the consternation from his brow.

“Am I truly that outwardly melancholy?” Tim asks, that voice soft as the silks beneath them in Ra’s’ ears.

“Yours is a great and tragic beauty, my beloved nightingale,” Ra’s murmurs, and Timothy’s eyes shut, a smile gracing his lips, like pressed rose petals in the shadows of their enclave.

“I shall endeavor to tell one thousand happy stories to make up for the sadness I have wrought,” he whispers, and Ra’s can only hold him tighter and hope it to be true.

All he has ever wanted was for Timothy to smile truly in the light of day.

\-----

The sunshine hours these days are a blur of Jason’s laughter and Damian’s angry noises like wasps disturbed from slumber, the things they show him marvelous and vast, just as Ra’s had promised. He sees Ra’s in the morning and in the night, and each day he finds his anger for Ra’s’ secrets dwindling until, one night, he lies sprawled across a chaise in front of the fire and looks at Ra’s profile to find that he does not resent him for his omissions with any more than a faint ache. The fire crackles like a furious snake, fluttering amber light across their features, and he has stripped down to simple, loose white pants and nothing else, letting his pale skin soak up the heat like a lizard soaks up sun. Ra’s is reading- Tim was as well, earlier, but he’s long since set his book down to turn his gaze to his silent lover. There is wine in the carafe- everything is already dizzy-sweet and spiced here in the common room of Ra’s’ quarters. Timothy does not take more than a few sips, his lips stained like pressed rose petals.

It takes long moments, honey thick, before Ra’s realizes that Tim’s looking at him with such intent and turns his dark gaze upon his lover.

“Was there something you needed, _beloved_?” Tim swallowed heavily, looking down at his hands before sitting up all the way and blinking at Ra’s.

“I am not mad at you any longer,” he tries, after a few more moments of silence. Ra’s raises an eyebrow and almost indelicately snorts.

“I am pleased by that,” he murmurs. “What made you change your mind, Timothy?” Tim pressed his fingers to Ra’s jaw, closing his eyes for a moment and breathing deeply, in the scent of the fire, the room, Ra’s so close to him at the foot of the chaise.

“I have seen your solitude,” Tim whispers, pressing his finger as gently as can be to the slow, steady pulse of Ra’s’ jugular. “And it tears me deeply to think of you enduring it for all eternity without even one small skip in the routine. You are alone in ways I cannot fathom. And I have come to love you, Ra’s, for all your faults and all my own flaws. It would be a great travesty for me to let that love be spoiled by the fact of your deception, now that I have come to understand why you perpetrated it in the first place.”

“You are forgiving on a level I dare not even fathom,” Ra’s murmurs, amusement clear in his voice even as he shifts beneath Tim’s fingers and his own hand rests on Tim’s thigh. Tim’s laugh is soft between them as he leans forward, as he rests his chin on the crown of Ra’s’ head. “I do, you know,” Ra’s whispers into his throat, kissing along it in small brushes of skin until Tim is tilting his head back and breathing more heavily than normal. “I love you.” Tim’s fingers tangle with his hair- he pulls him back until he can make eye contact.

“And I, you.”

“Then all is well, nightingale,” Ra’s slurs into his mouth, pressing him down on the chaise he had previously thought so comfortable. Now it is simply an object, accomplice to their pleasure when Ra’s’ clever fingers tug his pants downwards and their erections press slickly to one another. It is the first night that the lube gets used for something other than simply making Tim cry out weakly into the pillow while Ra’s’ fingers thrust deep within him- tonight Ra’s spreads Tim across the chaise and fucks him, takes him truly with his cock, and Tim bites his shoulder when he comes, hard enough to draw blood. They are dizzy, drunk with lust, and high on the shared confessions of their relationship.

And though perhaps Tim does not know where this leaves him, he sleeps with a sense of peace unlike any other he has held before, in the arms of the one who makes him sing and take flight on fragile wings of hollow avian bone.


End file.
